STAND UP! FOR JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT

FLASH: On October 16th, a Judge in Oakland, CA granted a change of venue motion by Johannes Mehserle, to move his murder trial out of Oakland. Mehserle is the BART policeman who shot and killed Oscar Grant in front of hundreds of shocked and outraged BART riders, several of whom captured the killing on video. Following is a statement by the Revolution Club, Bay Area.

October 17, 2009

STAND UP! FOR JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT

This is an outrage! First, the system murders Oscar Grant in cold blood. Now it may be getting ready to let killer cop Johannes Mehserle walk free, and paint another police murder as some kind of innocent mistake.

Yesterday a judge in Oakland decided he agreed with the killer’s attorney—that Mehserle couldn’t get a fair trial in Oakland so it had to be moved.

We’ve seen this movie before—over and over. We saw it in 1999 when the system moved the trial of the cops who shot Amadou Diallo 19 times just for reaching for his wallet from the Bronx to upstate New York and got an acquittal. And we saw it before then when the system moved the trial of the cops caught on videotape beating Rodney King from LA to Simi Valley—another acquittal.

We’re not buying it, and we’re not going along with it. Enough is enough!

Why does the judge say Mehserle can’t get a fair trial in Alameda County? Because too many people in Oakland have heard about the case, too many feel Oscar Grant was murdered, too many are angry about it, and too many have protested.

Well, shouldn’t people know about a cold-blooded murder? Why shouldn’t they be angry about it? And why shouldn’t they protest it? And why should people who care about the truth—and know how the police treat Black people—be excluded from the courtroom?

The protests were righteous and, in fact, we need MORE of them.

The only thing this judge proved is that the whole damn system is guilty—and that we need a revolution and a whole new system.

“The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world...when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness...those days must be GONE. And they CAN be.”

October 22nd is the National Day of Protest to STOP Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. The judge’s decision is an outrage and October 22nd is an opportunity to give voice to this outrage and organize to finally put an END to the epidemic of police brutality and murder. FIGHT BACK! WEAR BLACK!